Month: April 2017

I am happy to announce that the RTM build of Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 2 is now available for download for Veeam service providers! This is the latest update for our flagship product and adds support for the upcoming release of Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows 2.0 along with other significant enhancements and bug fixes. But when it comes to service providers, the biggest new feature is Veeam Backup Remote Access. Let’s dive straight into this new feature!

The key part of backup as a service (BaaS) offerings is full management of data protection activities and infrastructure, so service providers providing BaaS all have the requirement to connect to their customers’ Veeam Backup & Replication environments to perform on-going management and troubleshooting. Until today, performing these tasks required deploying and maintaining VPN connections (or similar technologies) to connect to the client sites – not an ideal solution for complexity, reliability and cost.

New use for your Cloud Connect infrastructure

A couple of years ago, we promised service providers that their investment in Veeam Cloud Connect will keep paying off in the future as we add more functionality on top of the Cloud Connect framework – and we’ve been fulfilling this promise ever since. Initially, in Veeam Backup & Replication v8, the Cloud Connect framework only supported backup and backup copy jobs – but already in v9, we added support for replication jobs for the complete cloud-based disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) solution, as well as basic remote management with Veeam Managed Backup Portal (now Veeam Availability Console).

Now, in 9.5 Update 2, we are enabling a full remote backup console experience, as well as Remote Desktop connectivity to the tenant’s backup server – all through the existing single-port TLS-secured tunnel provided by Veeam Cloud Connect! Finally, you can wave goodbye to babysitting VPNs and manage your tenant’s backup servers transparently and out of the box.

Rest assured, there is more functionality to come for even better ROI from your Cloud Connect infrastructure – come to VeeamON 2017 to learn what’s cooking! However, for now let’s go back to the main topic of this post and let me introduce…

Veeam Backup Remote Access

To further empower our new and existing Veeam Cloud & Service Providers (VCSP) partners to deliver managed services, in Update 2 we are introducing a new feature that enables VCSP support staff to remotely connect to a tenant’s backup server with the Veeam Backup & Replication Console, as well with the Remote Desktop client over the existing Cloud Connect tunnel, without the requirement to establish direct layer three network connectivity first. This enables remote support, troubleshooting and management of the tenant’s backup and replication jobs and the backup server itself. How cool is that?

The Veeam Backup Remote Access feature takes advantage of an existing single-port TLS-secured connection to the service provider that is established from tenant’s Veeam Backup & Replication environment once they register their service provider. This allows the service provider staff to connect to their tenant’s backup server using backup console or Remote Desktop console from any computer – whether their workstation is in the service provider’s data center or on the beach of a paradise island.

Both options offer the ability for the service provider to perform remote management and troubleshooting. The Remote Console can be used to connect to the tenant’s Veeam Backup & Replication server to check on job status or modify configuration, manage backup infrastructure components, or perform any other tasks you’d normally perform on the tenant’s behalf from within the console. Meanwhile, the Remote Desktop option can be used to perform troubleshooting of the backup server itself; change the OS settings, install patches and so on.

How do I make it work?

Quite simply, it just works! Obviously, for security reasons the tenant must opt-in to remote management by the services provider by selecting the Allow this Veeam Backup & Replication installation to be managed by the service provider check box as shown below.

And that’s it! Now the service provider can connect to the tenant’s backup server using their preferred way – Remote Console or Remote Desktop.

Please note however that by default, for better security the computer running either client application must be located in the service provider’s data center and have direct connectivity to the service provider’s Cloud Connect server. So, if your support staff does end up on the road or based remotely, you need to enable them to use this feature by selecting the Accept remote console connection requests originating from the Internet check box on the Security tab of the General Options dialog of the Cloud Connect server.

Connecting with a Remote Console

To initiate a remote console session from the service provider console, right click on the tenant account under Cloud Connect -> Tenants menu and select the Remote console option:

The Veeam Backup & Replication console in use must be able to connect to the Cloud Connect server and can be done in two ways:

Direct network connection, for when the console is located in the service provider data center; in this case, you need to supply a Cloud Connect backup server name and port number.

Through the cloud gateway, for when the console can be located anywhere on the Internet; in this case, you need to supply a cloud gateway address and Cloud Connect port number much the same way your tenants do. Just remember that with the default security settings, such connections will be refused by the Cloud Connect server.

Regardless of which way you chose to connect to the Cloud Connect server, you will also need to provide an account with Full Administrator role on your Cloud Connect server.

Once connected, you can select the tenant that is to be remotely managed from the list, as well as tenant’s backup server to connect to (in case a tenant has multiple backup servers). Finally, you need to specify the username and password of an account with a role on the tenant’s backup server. Yes, that’s a lot of credentials to enter – which is why we let you create a shortcut with all credentials saved by clicking the corresponding option, sending the shortcut to your desktop.

If all supplied credentials are correct, the service provider console will load up indicating that it is connected to the tenant’s backup server as shown below.

Once connected, you can perform all the management tasks Veeam Backup & Replication console supports except file and application item recoveries, as for now this process requires backup to be mounted locally to the console – so for performance considerations, these are best performed using a local console via a Remote Desktop client, the capability I will cover next!

Connecting with a Remote Desktop client

To initiate a remote desktop session from the service provider console, right click on the tenant account under the Cloud Connect -> Tenants menu and select the Remote desktop option, then pick the tenant’s backup server to connect to:

The remote desktop connection to the tenant’s Veeam Backup & Replication server is immediately established through the Cloud Connect tunnel. Of course, your Remote Desktop client will ask you to provide administrative credentials to the backup server you are connecting to. There’s no limitation to what you can do with the remote desktop session established, just remember that it will continue to run even if you close your service provider console.

Conclusion

With the addition of Veeam Backup Remote Access functionality, Veeam continues to enhance service capabilities for our VCSPs, helping to extend their management and support offerings to better serve their clients in delivering Veeam-powered Availability. We have achieved this by taking further advantage of our existing Cloud Connect framework that continues to be a central focus of our cloud Availability platform, with even more features coming to it in the future. If only other investments made by typical service providers provided so much ROI!

Wanna give it a try? Don’t wait, download now! All VCSPs already have access to the RTM build of Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 2 and can familiarize themselves with our latest and greatest technology, before it becomes generally available in a few weeks.

Source: Cisco
Are we there yet? If you have ever been on a road trip with kids, you know this question well. The anticipation of reaching our destination never really disappears. I was recently asked by an astute observer of Cisco’s digital transformation, “When will Cisco achieve its goal of becoming a digital company?” His question was […]Digital Transformation – Are We There Yet?

In the iconic Charlie Chaplin film, “Modern Times,” there is a classic scene where he tries to keep up with an ever-moving assembly line with the expected results you might envision. It’s a good image to keep in mind when considering today’s IT technology. The IT world is moving fast and the expectations on the services they deliver is ever increasing with of course, ever shrinking budgets to meet these demands.

Digital transformation

The world of technology is squarely in the middle of the digital transformation. The adoption of virtualization and hybrid cloud technologies is dramatically changing the way IT can deliver applications and services. There are new expectations for agility, simplicity and, perhaps most importantly, Availability. Customers, partners and employees expect applications and data to be available always, in all places and on any device. But there is another more fundamental change happening, regardless of the industry, the size of the company or their location — today’s modern enterprise is changing the way they deliver their goods and services. EVERY company is becoming a software company, and with this change brings a new set of IT challenges. And if companies aren’t investigating ways to change their business models, they’ll likely have to compete against a company that has. Technology has never been so important as a competitive advantage.

To converge or not to converge

One of the fundamental tools that is enabling and driving the digital transformation is converged infrastructures. The reason for the massive adoption of converged infrastructures is straight forward: Combining compute, networking, storage and virtualization provides more efficiency and predictable performance and deployment. These systems are a pre-integrated stack of technology that are pre-configured for particular applications and workloads and are optimized to work together. This eliminates a great deal of management and fine tuning which frees up those resources to focus on higher-value projects.

But convergence was just the first step. To gain even greater agility and efficiencies, we are seeing a rapid adoption of hyper-converged systems. With a hyper-converged infrastructure, a software layer and common management are added to the equation, giving even tighter coupling of the components. In fact, that’s one way to distinguish the difference between hyper-converged and converged infrastructures: With converged, you have separate components pre-configured and validated with one another, but still separate components — with hyper-converged, it is a single system in which all the components work together as one.

So, which is right for you? Well, that depends. It used to be that converged infrastructures were deployed for larger, more mission-critical workloads while hyper-converged was deployed for specific-use cases such as VDI or remote office. But with hyper-converged systems becoming more available with enterprise class storage (flash) and faster networking, the lines are blurring.

Modern times require modern Availability

As you adopt modern infrastructures as part of your digital transformation, it is imperative to adopt a modern data protection that is ideally suited for these solutions. In fact, at Veeam we are changing the way the world thinks about data protection. Instead of data protection, we frame it as Availability. If you think about it, it is a logical next step. Why do we backup? In case we need to recover something. Why do we recover? It’s really to keep data and applications available.

Veeam Availability Suite delivers an innovative approach to backup, replication and recovery. It’s designed to offer the highest levels of Availability in today’s highly virtualized environments.

It is convergence-agnostic, meaning it will work with any of the industry leading converged or hyper-converged systems. It is also tightly integrated with leading storage and hyper-converged systems vendors using storage snapshots to ensure application Availability.

Veeam Availability Suite offers rapid recovery of what you want, the way you want it with low recovery point objectives and streamlined disaster recovery, plus 2-in-1: backup and replication. Veeam provides verified recoverability of every file, application, or virtual server, every time through automated testing with audit trails.

Source: Cisco
Back in 1984 the desire to connect across campus gave birth to the first multi-protocol router, and to Cisco. Much has changed since then, but one thing remains constant. No, I’m not talking about my love of the New York Yankees – I’m talking about Cisco’s focus on the customer. Putting customer first is what […]Fibre Channel SAN Switching – Cisco Has Your Back

The Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE) certification program was a success during VeeamON 2015 and this year the training is only getting better. VeeamON 2017 is a great opportunity to become a VMCE. You will find yourself among IT Pros, industry leaders and Veeam experts, the perfect environment for Veeam solutions learning. In case you are already a VMCE, you can attend the brand new VMCE-Advanced: Design & Optimization v1 (VMCE-ADO course).

VMCE/VMCE-ADO Benefits

As a Veeam Certified Engineer you will have the knowledge to identify and resolve issues more efficiently, you’ll distinguish yourself from your peers and you can use the VMCE/VMCA logo next to your name. Moreover, being a VMCE enables you to have direct access to support for critical on-site issues and you’ll be able to get the most out of Veeam solutions because you’ll be a Veeam expert! The VMCE certification is surely a worthy investment for any IT professional looking to take their career a step further.

What’s new this year

One of the greatest upgrades for the VeeamON 2017 VMCE training program is that we added a Pearson VUE Test Center. This allows everybody to take the VMCE exam on-site during the conference, no matter if you just attended the training as a part of VeeamON or previously through a Veeam Authorized Education Center.

Another change based on the feedback we received on last year’s feedback is that we are running the VMCE class prior to the VeeamON kick-off. Those who enroll in the course will attend class on Monday, May 15 and Tuesday, May 16, except the Partners that sign up for the class and will go to an exclusive VMCE class, which runs Sunday and Monday.

And there’s more! Those of you taking the VMCE standard exam during VeeamON 2017 will get 30 days FREE access to VMCE Video On-demand learning (must previously have attended a v8 or later course to be eligible). Students taking the VMCE-ADO exam during VeeamON will get a FREE second shot in case they fail the exam. (must previously have attended a VMCE-ADO course to be eligible).

How to register to the VMCE training and prices

If you are interested in becoming a Veeam Certified Engineer or Veeam Certified Architect, go to our website and sign up. The price for both a conference pass and attending either VMCE or VMCE-ADO training is $1,699 USD. Should you have received a complimentary pass to VeeamON 2017, it costs $950 to add either the VMCE or VMCE-ADO course. VMCE or VMCE-ADO training can’t be purchased separately.

On Feb. 14, Veeam and their Veeam Cloud & Service Provider (VCSP) partners launched an unprecedented offer in the history of the company. This offer gave each of Veeam’s eligible US and Canada customers an opportunity to put $1,000 towards extending Availability to the cloud or expanding their existing usage of cloud backup and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS). The good news for US and Canada customers who have not yet registered for this offer — the deadline to register has now been extended to June 30 by popular demand!

In addition to this extension, Veeam has now expanded this FREE cloud services offer to additional global regions! This offer is now available in: EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands and Latin America. We encourage customers to register as soon as they can since they only have until Sept. 30 to utilize their FREE services. Registering is an easy three-step process:

The response to this offer from the Veeam customer base has been extremely positive, and many customers who had been thinking of cloud-powered data protection only needed an extra reason to give it a try — and this offer was just that reason. There are currently 60,000 Veeam customers eligible for this offer in North America, and many of them have already taken advantage of the opportunity to extend Availability to the cloud. Veeam anticipates that by extending and expanding this offer to more regions, even more customers will be able to discover this offer and make cloud backup or DRaaS a part of their arsenal for data protection.

Why Veeam Cloud Connect?

While this FREE cloud services offer has been a great starting point for many organizations wanting to protect data in the cloud, many more might be asking themselves why they should try Veeam’s cloud solutions. As a leader in the virtualization market, Veeam has always strived to make seemingly complex technology feats possible through simplicity. This theme of simplicity is also echoed in their approach to cloud. Veeam Cloud Connect is one of the easiest ways in the market for a business to activate cloud backup and DRaaS, all without the cost and complexity of building or managing an off-site infrastructure.

Veeam Cloud Connect provides the ability to easily select a trusted VCSP partner directly from the backup and replication console and configure off-site backup repositories to which virtual machine backups or replicas can be sent across a secure internet connection. The great thing about Veeam Cloud Connect is that Veeam customers already have it — it’s built into Veeam Availability Suite and Veeam Backup & Replication! In order to activate it, customers will only need to acquire a subscription to the appropriate computer and / or storage resources from a service provider of their choice. What better time to turn on Veeam Cloud Connect than now?!

The Veeam Cloud Connect technology has some clear advantages over similar cloud solutions in the market:

Fighting ransomware has become a part of doing business today. Technology professionals around the world are advocating many ways to stay resilient. The most effective method is to have end-user training on how to handle and operate attachments and connectivity to the Internet. One other area to look is frequent endpoint devices: Laptops and PCs.

Veeam has taken ransomware resiliency seriously for a while. We’ve put out a number of posts such as early tips for some of the first attacks and some practical tips when using Veeam Backup & Replication. Now with Veeam Agent for Linux and Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE available as well as Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows (coming VERY soon) as options for laptops and PCs, it’s time to take ransomware resiliency seriously on these devices.

Before I go too far, it’s important to note that ransomware can exist on both Windows and Linux systems. Additionally, ransomware is not just a PC problem (see recent survey blogpost), as at Veeam we see it nearly every day in technical support for virtual machines. We’ll see more content coming for the virtual machine side of the approach for most resiliency, in this post I’ll focus on PCs and Laptops.

Veeam Agent for Linux is the newest product in which Veeam has offered image-based Availability for non-virtualized systems. Veeam Agent for Linux is a great way to do backups of many different Linux systems with a very intuitive user interface:

For ransomware resiliency for Veeam Agent for Linux, putting backups on a different file system will be very easy to do with the seamless integration with Veeam Availability Suite. In this way, backups of Veeam Agent for Linux systems can be placed in Veeam Backup & Replication repositories. They also can be used in the Backup Copy Job function. This way, the Linux backups can be placed on different file systems to avoid propagation of ransomware across the source Linux system and the backups. The Backup Copy Job of Veeam Agent for Linux is shown below writing Linux backups to a Windows Server 2016 ReFS backup repository:

Now, let’s talk about Microsoft operating systems and resiliency against ransomware when it comes to backups. Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE will soon be renamed to Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows. Let’s explain this changing situation here briefly. Veeam Endpoint Backup FREE was announced at VeeamON in 2014 and since it has been available, it has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times. From the start, it has always provided backup Availability for desktop and server-class Windows operating systems. However, it didn’t have the application-aware image processing support and technical support service. Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows will introduce these key capabilities as well as many more.

For Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows, you also can put backups on several different storage options. Everything from NAS systems to removable storage, a Linux path, tape media, a deduplication appliance when integrated with Veeam Availability Suite and more. The removable storage is of interest as it may be the only realistic option for many PC or laptop systems. A while ago, Veeam implemented a feature to eject removable media at the completion of a backup job. This option is available in the scheduling option and when the backup target is a removable media and is shown below:

This simple option can indeed make a big difference. We even had a user share a situation where ransomware encrypted one’s backups. This underscores a need for completely offline backups or otherwise some form of an “air gap” between backup data and production systems. Thus, behave as if when you have ransomware in your organization the only real solution is to restore from backup after it is contained. There is a whole practice of inbound detection and prevention but if it gets in, backup is your only option. Having media eject offline is another mechanism that even with isolated PCs and laptops can have more Availability by having the backup storage offline.

Availability in the ransomware era is a never-ending practice of diligence and configuration review. Additionally, the arsenal of threats will always become more sophisticated to meet our new defenses. What tips do you have for ransomware resiliency on PCs and laptops? Share your tips below!

Great news! The breakout sessions for VeeamON 2017 have been revealed, and they are all incredible. Today, I’m offering you a sneak peek at five sessions that caught my attention and which, I believe, will also spark the interest of the attendees. If you are keen to attend but haven’t booked your seat yet, you can do it here.

Hybrid Cloud Solutions from Veeam and Microsoft Azure

Veeam innovates and provides Availability strategies for both virtual and physical infrastructures with Direct Restore to Microsoft Azure. Bill McKinley, our alliance product marketing manager, and Chris Henley, senior manager of Microsoft global alliance at Veeam, will be on stage on Wednesday, May 17 from 2:50 p.m. to 5:10 p.m., and they will talk about how Veeam solutions allow you to extend on-premises environments’ Availability into the cloud via Microsoft Azure.

Bridging the Availability Gap with Veeam on IBM Cloud

Zeb Ahmed, senior offering manager at IBM, will talk about the Availability Gap that IT executives often face — the difference between the uptime they can provide and what their customers expect. The IBM Cloud and Veeam joint solution helps customers meet the SLAs of Modern Data Centers and bridge this Availability Gap. Zeb Ahmed will be on the stage on Wednesday, May 17 from 4:10 p.m. to 5:10 p.m. and will cover the considerations of Veeam deployment into the IBM public cloud.

Growing Your Cloud Business with Veeam

Speaking about CLOUD, this is the new normal for today’s organizations, and Veeam helps you to leverage its capabilities. In this session, Veeam experts will introduce you to our cloud offerings and help you choose the best option for your infrastructure. This session takes place on Tuesday, May 16 from 2:50 p.m. to 3:50 p.m.

Cloud Adoption Is a Process Not a Sudden Switch

Expanding your infrastructure to the cloud is not a matter of preference. It involves many factors and a different mindset on your IT deployment. Mike Ressler, director of product management at Veeam, will display a few use cases to increase your knowledge and trust in cloud solutions and help you better understand why cloud is so important. Mike will be on the stage on Thursday, May 18 from 2:50 p.m. to 3:50 p.m.

What’s New in v10: A Deeper Dive

We are all excited about what Veeam Availability Suite v10 will bring and what better person to talk about it than Anton Gostev, vice president of product management? Anton will provide you a glimpse of our upcoming product, making you one of the first to know! Anton Gostev will showcase Veeam Availability Suite v10 on the stage on Thursday, May 18 from 4:10 p.m. to 5:10 p.m.

These are just five of the sessions that caught my attention the first time I checked, but here is the complete list that will give you trouble when trying to choose which sessions to attend. VeeamON 2017 is the world’s premier Availability event, and it will take place in New Orleans, LA between May 16 – 18 at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

In closing, our president and COO, Peter McKay, invites you to the Availability event of the year and explains why you should be there:

The only two certainties in life are death and taxes. In IT, you can add disasters to this short list of life’s universal anxieties.

Regardless of the size of your budget, people power and level of IT acumen, you will experience application downtime at some point. Amazon’s recent east coast outage is testimony to the fact that even the best and brightest occasionally stumble.

The irony is that while many organizations make significant investments in their disaster recovery (DR) capabilities, most have a mixed track record, at best, with meeting their recovery service level agreements (SLAs). As this chart from ESG illustrates, only 65% of business continuity (BC) and DR tests are deemed successful.

Citing his research, Jason recently shared with me: “Green Checkers assuredly don’t test as thoroughly, thus resulting in a higher passing rate during tests, but failures when they need it most — whereas Red X’ers are likely get a lower passing rate (because they are intentionally looking for what can be improved), thereby assuring a more likely successful recovery when it really matters. One of the reasons for lighter testing is seeking the easy route — the other is the cumbersomeness of testing. If it wasn’t cumbersome, most of us would likely test more.”

DR testing can indeed be cumbersome. In addition to being time consuming, it can also be costly and fraught with risk. The risk of inadvertently taking down a production system during a DR drill is incentive enough to keep testing to a minimum.

But what if there was a cost-effective way to do DR testing that mitigates risk and dramatically reduces the preparation work and the time required to test the recoverability of critical application services?

By taking the risk, cost and hassle out of testing application recoverability, Veeam’s On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots feature is a great way for organizations to leverage their existing investments in NetApp, Nimble Storage, Dell EMC and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Storage to attain the following three business benefits:

Risk mitigation: Many IT decision makers have expressed concerns around their ability to meet end-user SLAs. By enabling organizations to rapidly spin-up virtual test labs that are completely isolated from production, businesses can safely test their application recoverability and proactively address any of their DR vulnerabilities.

Improved ROI: In addition to on-demand DR testing, Veeam can also be utilized to instantly stand-up test/dev environments on a near real-time copy of production data to help accelerate application development cycles. This helps to improve time-to-market while delivering a higher return on your storage investments.

Maintain compliance: Veeam’s integration with modern storage enables organizations to achieve recovery time and point objectives (RTPO) of under 15 minutes for all applications and data. Imagine showing your IT auditor in real-time how quickly you can recover critical business services. For many firms, this capability alone would pay for itself many times over.

Back when I was in school, 65% was considered a passing grade. In the business world, a 65% DR success grade is literally flirting with disaster. DR proficiency may require lots of practice but it also requires Availability software, like Veeam’s, that works hand-in-glove with your storage infrastructure to make application recoveries simpler, more predictable and less risky.